Prosperity

By Elizabeth Fritz

When Katharine Culhane, a successful writer of fiction and historical works, died leaving behind an unpublished memoir, her literary executor, Elizabeth Fritz, discovered the memoir and undertook to publish it. It tells a story of a young reporter in Prosperity, Indiana, in the post World War II years, and a special friendship between Katharine and a Russian migr, Madam Anna Suvorov. Fifty years later Katharine finds a letter from Madam Anna that suggests her death may have been due to foul play. Returning to Prosperity, reconnecting with old acquaintances, and asking questions about Madam Annas death, Katharine finds the truth and visits her own form of justice on the perpetrators.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462023783

Elizabeth Fritz

Elizabeth Fritz lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A Ph.D. biochemist, she is retired after almost 50 years as a clinical chemist. She enjoys aqua exercise, gardening, local theater productions, and Philharmonic concerts. She writes novels for pastime.

Book preview

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

EPILOGUE

AN EXPLANATION

Having been named Katharine Culhane’s literary executor,[1]* I was sorting through her unpublished manuscripts when I encountered this rather interesting autobiographical insight into my friend’s life. I thought it worthy of sharing it with her reading public.

—Elizabeth Fritz

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It was the Friday before Labor Day, 1950, that I stepped off the bus in Prosperity, Indiana. The sum total of my possessions resided in two battered suitcases. My future resided in a letter from Mr. Solomon Baumer bidding me to show myself on Tuesday after Labor Day to take up a position on his newspaper. My immediate past consisted of $98.00 in my purse and a diploma in one of the suitcases which attested to a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Franklin College as of June 3, 1950. I had sent transcripts to a lot of newspapers, listing liberal arts courses with a major in journalism, including a letter of recommendation from my major professor, and had waited prayerfully for a reply. I received Mr. Baumer’s reply gratefully—I was subsisting in the meantime on thirty-five cents an hour earned on the line of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Fort Wayne while paying five dollars a week board and room to my father’s Cousin Belle. I was growing desperate for a job. Ten weeks of inquiries had generated a discouraging collection of no positions available answers. Cousin Belle begrudged me every inch of space and every nibble of food and as soon as I conveyed the content of Mr. Baumer’s letter, she couldn’t wait to see me go. She didn’t even tell me to write and say how I was getting along. That was OK with me, I didn’t care much for her either.

Now I stood on the sidewalk in front of the general store that served also as the bus station, breathing the hot, dusty air of that August afternoon and wondering what to do next. I looked up and down the wide, empty street in which none of the diagonal parking places was occupied, and at the fifteen or twenty store fronts that lined the street before it became a tree-shaded thoroughfare of modest houses. Off to the left I saw a sign that said Radio Crier. Since that matched the letterhead of Mr. Baumer’s missive, I picked up my suitcases and headed in its direction. As I stumbled along, I made mental notes of Prosperity’s casual approach to street maintenance. Now that I was about to be a reporter, frost-heaved sidewalk slabs and potholed paving had potential for future news items. All the stores along my way were shut up tight, CLOSED signs propped inside the glass.

Arriving beneath The Crier’s sign, I pushed aside a torn screen door and tried the inner door. It opened to the tune of a jangling bell. Interior décor was less than prepossessing: a linoleum floor worn down to its backing; a window remarkable for the size and number of its smudges; and spider webs of prize-winning proportions draped over sagging mini-blinds. A long counter divided the space into two sections, the front furnished with half a dozen beat-up armless chairs, the back partially closed off by an eight-foot partition of batten board. I barged inside with my clumsy burden of luggage and took deep breaths of the unexpected blessing of cool air. A job in an air-conditioned enterprise was more than I had hoped for.

A teenager, face and hands ink-smudged, wearing a paper hat, and wiping his hands on an inky rag, came from the back in response to the summons of the bell. Norman Rockwell would have found him prime material for a Saturday Evening Post cover but his vernacular was pure Hoosier.

Ain’t no one here but me. Everybody’s gone to the Fair. If you want to place an ad, you’ll have to come back tomorrow morning early before Mr. B and Sally goes to the Fair again. (The Fair, I thought, must be a major event around here. I was to hear its capital letter every time anyone spoke of it.)

My name’s Culhane. I’m supposed to go to work here next Tuesday.

Oh yeah, Mr. B said you was on the way. But he didn’t leave no word what I was supposed to do with you if you come when he was gone. Hard to tell when he’ll be back today; they got flat racing goin’ at the grounds and he likes to see it through.

The kid cocked his head on one side and looked mildly interested in what would happen next; apparently he felt once he had the ball back in my court, his work was done. Well, I wasn’t going to let him think I was some hick without a clue, so I adopted my most businesslike tone in reply.

I’ll need to find a place to stay. Can you direct me to a hotel?

Ain’t no hotel. Mrs. Pace down the street boards folks. Maybe she’s got something but she’s prob’ly at the Fair too. You could sit on her front porch till she got back, it’s shady over there. Big white house with a naked lady in a fountain in the front yard.

He jerked his thumb to the left to indicate the way to Mrs. Pace’s establishment. I picked up my baggage and proceeded in that direction over more cock-eyed sidewalk slabs. My suitcases got heavier, the air got hotter and dustier with every step. I reached Mrs. Pace’s shady front yard with a groan of relief. The smoothly cut lawn and tall trees promised a cool breeze; the promise did not materialize. With my whole heart I envied the naked lady standing under the stream of water pouring from the urn poised over her head. To stave off the threat of heat prostration I splashed some of her water on my face and dried it with an already grubby handkerchief. I climbed up a flight of eight steps to the shade of the porch, knocked on a screen door (the house door stood open) without an answer, and decided to sit and wait on one of Mrs. Pace’s inviting white rocking chairs. Weariness, heat, and the rhythmic motion of the chair were soporific and I promptly fell fast asleep.

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A hearty voice jogged me abruptly awake, And who might you be?

A large woman stood at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed in a brightly flowered cotton dress that strained across her very generous bosom and equally generous hips. A broad-brimmed straw hat crowned a pink face and brilliant blue eyes peering out of plump cheeks. The woman was carrying a basket on her arm, its contents covered with a red-checked napkin. As I struggled to rise from my chair to answer her question, she started to climb the stairs, puffing and panting, her face growing ever more pink. My alarm at her breathlessness was superseded by the need to explain my presence. Hastily I introduced myself.

I’m Katharine Culhane. I’m going to work for Mr. Baumer starting Tuesday, but I need a place to stay until I can settle. The boy at the paper said you had rooms….

No, I ain’t, she interrupted in a firm tone. I’m all full up with folks likely to stay.

Perhaps you could recommend another place?

Ain’t no other place. You hungry?

I tried to sound like I wasn’t. No, ma’am. I’m not.

Well, have a cinnamon bun anyway. That snooty Miz Prouty elbowed me out of a blue ribbon at the Fair today. And I made up my mind I wasn’t leaving my entry there for them judges to scarf down behind the curtains. Here, have one!

She pulled aside the red-checked napkin and held the basket out to me. I took a bun and bit it into it, expecting an ordinarily tasty bit of pastry. But, wow, it was gooood! Plump raisins and buttery cinnamon goo in the swirl, creamy vanilla icing somewhat damaged by the heat of the day. With my mouth full, I mumbled my thanks and swallowed.

Able again to speak, I said, If the judges chose Miz Prouty’s buns over yours, they were either related to her or she’s a bake-off champion. This is delicious!

Glad to hear you like it. Have another one. I’m goin’ in the house and make some phone calls to see if we can get you a place.

I sat down in the rocking chair, bun in either hand, and rocked and savored until my hands were empty. Then I used the naked lady’s basin and my grubby handkerchief to clean up. Mrs. Pace returned, minus her basket.

I didn’t tell you but my name is Ma-Ry-a Pace. If you put it in the paper some time be sure to spell it right, M-A-R-I-A-H. Now, pick up them bags and come on through the house. I got you a room with Madam Anna. Her house is back there behind mine. She’ll take you on for a week and if you suit, longer if you want.

Talking all the way, she took me into the house, down a dim, cool hall, out the back door, and down the garden path to a back gate.

I can give you meals, breakfast and supper seven days a week, $3.00 a week; Madam Anna will give you a room for $3.00 a week. It’s so close, even in the winter it won’t be no problem to go back and forth. This here is Madam Anna’s side gate.

The gate in the tall board fence was latched with a dilapidated metal thing that threatened to fall off when touched. But Mrs. Pace dealt with it firmly and ushered me in through a yard that was a riot of flowering shrubs and beds. Huge trees shaded part of the yard; brilliant spreads of white, red, and pink impatiens glowed under them. A bank of black-eyed Susans swept across emerald green grass off to my right, and colorful pots planted with green stuff (herbs maybe?) and red or pink or white geraniums lined up along a grassy path to the back door of a house almost lost under a mammoth wisteria vine. Brushing aside a heavy purple plume of flowers dangling over some shallow steps, Mrs. Pace called out, Here she is, Madam Anna. She’ll have supper with me at six.

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She bustled off leaving me confronting my new